Huge npower bill

Finchso

We have been having major issues with npower. We got a bill in may saying we owed them £3484.67 in back dated electricity dating back to oct 2010. We immediately realised this must be wrong, initial contact with npower they told us no this bill was defo right and we had to pay! I rang back a few days later and said I wanted it looked into and so a complaint was raised. I have since been asked questions like have we had a heated swimming pool installed, or had under floor heating in the house, one person told me we were using enuff electric to power a small hotel! I advised that there has been no change in our house consumption! This points to either faulty meter or faulty electrics in our house. Npower suggested fitting a test meter which we agreed to, after 3 appointments with meter company we were finally told test meter couldn't be fitted as there's not enough room on our electric board, they guy who came did a few initial tests in the house and said electrics seem fine, he said our meter seemed to be whizzing round, the date and time on meter is wrong and also our night and day seem to be wrong way round, ie rate 1 is night and rate 2 is day (normally its the other way round). Npower have now given us two options, we can have our meter tested by SGS who are independent meter reader company or we can just have a new meter fitted and npower will then look at our monthly consumption and work out past bills from that (not sure how they will do that). I am unsure what to do, any advise appreciated, has anyone has similar experience ? We are in nov now and this has been too-ing and throwing since may and in the meantime we are missing all the good lock in deals out there! Just had a letter from npower saying they estimate our next 12 months consumption at £8000 ! We live in3 bed detached house! Not massive at all! Please any advice appreciated! :mad:

spiro

If they are offering to have the meter exchanged and idenpently tested you need to check if there are any costs involved. Normally your supplier will arrange for a simple load test to be done first which provides a rough estimate of if the meter is accurate i.e. 1kwh load for 10min. If this indicates the meter is accurate you can opt for a check meter (which wont fit in your case) and that is free if the meter is found to be wrong but you pay the fees if it is found to be accurate. Obviously indendent testing would be even more expensive so I would check if you could be charged.

Personally if there is no charge involved I would have it tested.

In terms of consumption how many kwh are you using per day (£s mean nothing)?

jalexa

Finchso wrote: »

..., they guy who came did a few initial tests in the house and said electrics seem fine, he said our meter seemed to be whizzing round, the date and time on meter is wrong and also our night and day seem to be wrong way round, ie rate 1 is night and rate 2 is day (normally its the other way round).

First of all welcome to the forum (and a not uncommon problem).

The "probable cause" of the billing fiasco is what I quoted. Eliminate that before considering meter inaccuracy. In particular before the evidence is removed.

What you need to do is to make an immediate photographic record of your meters and time-switch. Then identify during the day which register is updating and then (sorry) during the middle of the night check which register is updating. Are the meter registers clearly identified? (I'm assuming you are on Economy 7). Can you tell the time the time-clock is set to? Is it a separate time-clock or built into the meter?

Then check on your most recent bill (the one that trigerred the problem) which reading has been allocated to which rate. Do the same with the last pre-problem bill.

Your post displays something common to "newbies", never any readings posted just a "rant" about cost (not unreasonably). If you want meaningful help here you must post meter readings.

IMV what NPower are quoted as saying is premature and incompetent.

Given what was said after initial inspection, I strongly suggest you raise a formal complaint, in writing or by email, that an adviser informed you that "the bill was defo right" but on inspection metering problems were noted. Ask how (and when) NPower intend to address that issue and given the problems identified how can they now be certain "the bill was defo right". If you remain dissastisfied after 8 weeks you can refer the issue to the Energy Ombudsman. That process is cost free to you but not cost free to NPower.

Finchso

I have been taking readings and we use on average 25 units during day and 5 units at night. We have an economy 7 meter, it's very old. It has a khw dial on the top then the rate box is attached to the bottom where u get the readings from, it flashes up with the date and time and rate 1 and 2. I'm sorry if I'm not making the description clear - I have v basic knowledge of this sort of thing!

To answer an earlier question there would be no charge for getting the meter tested. We have issued a complaint at npower we are currently dealing with the executive complaints division.

spiro

Finchso wrote: »

I have been taking readings and we use on average 25 units during day and 5 units at night. We have an economy 7 meter, it's very old. It has a khw dial on the top then the rate box is attached to the bottom where u get the readings from, it flashes up with the date and time and rate 1 and 2. I'm sorry if I'm not making the description clear - I have v basic knowledge of this sort of thing!

To answer an earlier question there would be no charge for getting the meter tested. We have issued a complaint at npower we are currently dealing with the executive complaints division.

At 30kwh/day that is 11k/year which is over 3 times the national average so if you have GSH something is using loads of elec or your meter is faulty.

Finchso

Thanks spiro, I thought as much, I've been trying to find out the national average and have asked npower a few times but they always avoided the question. I'm concerned if they take our meter and test it and don't find a problem with it the onus is on us again to find the problem.

Finchso

P.s we do have gas central heating and gas cooker.

jalexa

Finchso wrote: »

I have been taking readings and we use on average 25 units during day and 5 units at night. We have an economy 7 meter...

The meter may (or may not) be accurate but my advice remains to first eliminate readings transposition as the causal reason for the problem.

If you have GCH and can only uses 5kWhrs at night, it does not make financial sense to be on Economy 7, but back to the problem. If historically you have been using 25kWhrs/day and 5kWhrs at night and (historically) the day units have been charged at night rate - and this has just been discovered - NPower will see that as a massive undercharge.

IMO Billing Code backbilling relief should limit the clawback to 12 months, but you may need to ask and/or fight for your rights.

I do not know if that is the reason (or whether the meter is inaccurate) but IMO you should eliminate meter transposition (and time-clock) inaccuracy first before the "evidence" is conveniently removed.

Finchso

Thanks for your input jalexa, I'm definitely going to look into this, npower did say they had analysed the bills to check for this, I have been naive in accepting that that has been done without checking for myself, npower did admit that one meter reading I rang them with had been entered on their system incorrectly, but advised even with correcting this we still had a huge jump in electricity consumption since October 2010.

MickyJ

Hi there

There could be several reasons for this, including the possibility of a faulty meter. But if you have a duel-rate meter (i.e. independent day-time and night-time readings, also known as Economy 7) it's VERY important that NPower is recording these meter readings THE CORRECT WAY AROUND. If they aren't, then you're experiencing what's known in the trade as 'twisted reads'.

Now, if you're being billed independently for day-time and night-time usage, you'll be charged a lot more for the electricity that you use in the day than you will in the night. As the night-time rate only lasts for about 7 hours or so, if the readings are the wrong way around, you'll end up paying a rather juicy bill!

Also, it's worth noting that, unless you have storage heaters instead of gas central heating, you'll be paying a lot more using this type of meter than you would with a normal 'single-rate meter' even if the reading ARE the right way around (that's because, although you get a reduced rate for night-time usage, the daytime usage is significantly more expensive than you would pay on a single-rate meter).



So...

1. Check if NPower are billing you on a duel-rate tariff.

2. If they are, check that the reads aren't twisted -- If the reads are twisted, they'll have to re-bill you correctly.

3. Ask them to bill you on a single-rate tariff from this point on if you DON'T use electric storage heaters instead of gas central heating.

5. If you have an immersion heater in your property. If you do STOP USING IT unless you really have to -- these things cost a small fortune to run, especially if you forget to turn them off, or they develop a fault.

As a general rule of thumb, heating ANYTHING with electricity is relatively expensive. Things like electric fires, ovens and hobs cost money; as do electric showers and even kettles -- the latter two aren't too much of a concern, but electric heaters and fires can quickly run up a large bill if not kept in check. Everything being equal, it's cheaper to use gas than electricity for most things in this category. When the NPower rep you spoke to asked you about fish-ponds, heated pools, etc... that's sort of where he was coming from.

Things like heater-dryers, and tumble dryers can be very expensive if used to excess; dish-washers, washing-machines, and the like can be pretty hefty, too.

[Deleted User]

Jalexa is correct in saying work out precisely how your meter is working re rate one, rate two. There is no normal standard settings ( at least in my area ) where you can have rate 1 =night, and next door could be rate 2 = night. There is one possibility, and i have known this happen, that you have been billed incorrectly for a number of years on a transposed readings where you will get a much cheaper bill because your day units are billed at night. I have seen and photographed many peoples bills over the years who have had this happen . Npower may have found this out then may try to get you to pay the full ammount back and just calling it "back dated electricity " so you dont go down the route of flagging up the back billing code and get out of paying it. Its something to eliminate anyway. I do see the time drift a little on meters (half an hour or so ) with built in timers, but not the date